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Chad Landrum

It is said that history repeats itself. There is some truth to be found within this statement. All existing matter, be it organic or inorganic, and social phenomenon alike, have a history of endless development, a process of becoming, being, and passing away and into something qualitatively new altogether.

But development does not, nor should it be misunderstood, as proceeding along a straight line. Linearism is a product of the human mind, a human construct, that fails to correspond with the external material world and the laws inherent within it that govern the direction and development of its endless transformation. ...........READ MORE

Chad Landrum is one of tens of thousands of California prisoners who embarked on a hunger strike earlier this month, on July 8th. As detailed elsewhere, the prisoners are struggling against conditions of torture that persist in California supermaxes, most notably Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security torture Housing Unit.

Chad is also known to readers of this site, as a prison intellectual and writer, a student and teacher of dialectical materialism and its application to the study of political economy and the prison struggle itself. (Chad’s writings can be read here.) A keen mind, Chad has written about ...........READ MORE

As a species, to continue living we must first and foremost procreate, feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves above all else. And only through cooperating with one another can these necessities be realized. Hence the source of our social essence.

Today in the current state of economic development (capitalism-imperialism) the vast majority of the world’s people have been separated from their means of production (land, natural resources, technology, intellectual property, factories, etc.) by property rights which the capitalist classes of the world, who predominately reside within fi rst world borders, have laid claim to. And yet this doesn’t change the fact ...........READ MORE

It is a fact that never in the history of this country’s parasitical existence has it every fully supported itself. Just as the settler economy of the east was erected on the backs of African and indigenous slaves, so too was the economy of the west erected on the blood and sweat of Mexicanos and other oppressed nationalities.

Throughout the early and mid 1800s when the U.S. chain of settler colonies was in its final stages of transforming into a settler empire, it launched a mass campaign of land grabbing and terrorism, reducing the northern 40 percent of Mexico to ...........READ MORE

The apparatus of the state—in particular the courts and legal system—are in the hands of the class that is dominate in the economic relations of society. The state is never natural: It is always an instrument for protecting and preserving the existing system.”
Bob Avakian, Democracy: Can’t We Do Better Than That?

As a species we must feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves if we are to procreate and perpetuate our existence, i.e., we must engage in “production” and expend our labor power, and in the process transforming our material conditions. ...........READ MORE

C. Landrum, The Rock v. 2 #2, February 2013

A PBSP-generated memo dated December 10, 2012, was circulated throughout the pods addressing both current and additional demands. How much more obvious can it be?! The state has essentially been stringing us along like a puppy on a chain, conceding and occasional crumb along the way in an effort to pacify and distract us, and ultimately dividing us into opposing camps. As convenient as it may be, let’s not allow ourselves to be further deceived with self-delusions of grandeur. ...........READ MORE

Chad Landrum has been a regular contributor to California Prison Focus and other progressive publications. He is the author of The Road Ahead and the Dialectics of Change. He is currently held in Pelican Bay State Prison’s notorious SHU. He can be reached at:

Introduction [from Prison Focus]: We’re all aware of the 2005 court decision ordering the C.D.C. to begin implementing integrated celling of the prison’s multi-ethnic population. What may not be known to many is that this policy has already been initiated.

For the most part the immediate response has essentially been that of resistance which has manifested itself in both abstract (verbal) and practical (concrete) forms.

Despite the multi-faceted origin of this resistance, it is primarily the manifestation of subjective influences, that is, a long history of our social conditioning. Furthermore it should be noted that this resistance is not exclusively ...........READ MORE

“Whoever doesn’t find a way to struggle against this situation is destroyed—the situation controls him and not the other way around.”– The Red Army Faction, 1975

It is necessary to understand that the universe and its innumerable forms of matter are in ceaseless flux and ever- changing. Therefore if we are to formulate an accurate analysis of our circumstances, we must first begin with the recognition that technically speaking, reality does not consist of “things”, but of processes and endless transformations.

All form is the outward manifestation and the appearance of a given object or process. And in fact, ...........READ MORE

Displeased with the direction in which all is developing, I’ve pretty much taken a backseat. I find no pleasure anticipating that all is inevitably doomed to fail—even success in the con- text of our existing demands will be a failure. It is more disappointing that there are others who know this yet manufacture excuses for keeping quiet and supporting the current trajectory.

There is no justification for remaining quiet, or neutral. Neutrality does not in fact exist. This is not philosophic speculation, but philosophic materialism backed by scientific fact. Inaction is in itself action that facilitates both the existing status ...........READ MORE